


Confessions from the bottom of a bottle

by Sweaters (Guhs)



Series: Pale Danvivor [2]
Category: Fallout 4
Genre: ? - Freeform, As comforting as Tinman can be, Comfort/Angst, Cute, Fluff, Light Angst, Light-Hearted, M/M, Main Story, Paladin Dense, Spoilers, What the hell are those geometric jungle domes called?, Which is generally not at all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-27
Updated: 2019-02-27
Packaged: 2019-11-06 11:15:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17938676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Guhs/pseuds/Sweaters
Summary: Nate is drunk and ugly-nostalgic. Paladin Dense swoops in with his usual self. Osmium is lighter than Danse's situational awareness.





	Confessions from the bottom of a bottle

_ Crawl out through the fallout, baby… _

Nate looked out over the view from the top of the playset. The dirty water of the creek, the fried trees beyond, the broken bridge from here to there. He nursed the dusty white bottle in his hand thoughtfully. Sometimes, it really felt like the bastards knew what was coming all along. All the Vault-Tec propaganda for vaults that were reportedly never intended to be used, the way everyone relied on nuclear power, even the damn music that was popular at the time. Maybe it was just the bitter old widower in him, but sometimes he just couldn’t help but think everything was rigged from the start.

That could also be the half bottle of vodka and two shots of moonshine talking as well, but who knows? Certainly not Nate, the half liquor, half angry man that he was.

But if he closed his eyes, ignored the overpowering Eau de Wasteland and just focused on the warm breeze, static-y crooning of Sheldon Allman and the alcoholic fire in the pit of his belly, Nate could pretend that he was back home and relaxing on a warm Sunday night, his family waiting for him right at home, where they should be, neither slaughtered nor otherwise ripped from him.

_ Think about your hero, when you’re at ground zero… _

“Everything alright, soldier?”  
Ah, ‘soldier’. Paladin Danse’s favorite sobriquet and another dull remind of what was. Nate hadn’t even heard him walk up, but there he was, looming with authority near the monkey bars. The drunker of the two didn’t feel like keeping his eyes open for long, so he didn’t.

“Much as it can be, I guess.” With another swig of his vodka, Nate patted the geodesic form of the dome climber he was half sitting, half laying on.  _ Clink clink _ . He would do this every so often back before Shaun was born; lug out the old radio, grab a couple of drinks and just watch the sun set over the ridge.   
There was some hesitation, but the tinman finally approached, made the climb, found an awkward position on one of the neighboring rungs, straight as a board. The man truly never did relax.

“What’s on your mind?” the Paladin asked like he really wouldn’t already have a clue. They hadn’t just discovered that his son, his  _ infant son _ , was a 60-year-old man in charge of the Commonwealth boogeyman, or anything. Nate’s following smile was a little bitter, but he washed it down with some more vodka.  _ Forget baseball, why wasn’t  _ drinking  _ America’s favorite pastime? _

“Oh, just the usual. Property values, taxes, water bill, the works.” Surprisingly, that earned a frustrated grunt from Mr. Metal, who seemed to be growing more uncomfortable by the second. Never was a man for emotions, Danse. They were messy, after all. Nevertheless, Nate’s eyebrows quirked, and he managed to pry open an eye.

“Sorry, what was that? Was that a sound of disapproval? That’s hardly  _ appropriate _ , soldier.” The alcohol may have emboldened him a bit, too. Just a tad, perhaps.

“Don’t act oblivious, Knight-Sergeant. If there’s something wrong, I want to know.”

“Why?”

“What?”

“Why do you want to know? It’s not vital to the mission. It won’t give us an edge in combat. There’s no reason to want to know.”

“A healthy mind is--”

“Is a sharp mind, right. Ad Victoriam, Paladin.” A light scoff, another swig. Danse straightened more, defying all limitations of what was physically possible regarding a man’s natural spine. It took another minute of silence, but the Paladin finally moved to climb off the top of the dome. The music switched, with very little flair.  _ Good job, Travis _ .

_ You gotta ac-centuate the positive… _

“This was the first song we danced to.” Danse paused mid-climb.

“Sorry?”

“Me and Nora. It was the freshman year of college, we met at a student mingle in a local pub. An icebreaker, y’know? She and I were the only ones in our respective majors who hadn’t found a group, and we just kind of… gravitated toward each other. She was wearing shorts and smelled like a cherry spritzer. She was an awful dancer but, so was I. Four left feet, trying to make sense of the rhythm.  _ God _ , she was beautiful.” The vodka was rushing hot through Nate’s blood, but it couldn’t muddle the sadness in his voice, or dull the solemn frown on his face as he watched the water ripple in the creek.

“She… sounds like she was an extraordinary woman.”

“Oh, she was. We were every bit each other’s equal and she was the love of my life. The first person I ever really loved.” A heavy sigh. ”She should’ve been the last.”

“... Should’ve been? Is there somebody else now?”

Nate paused. He could feel his heart pounding now, and he didn’t like where this was going.  _ More vodka _ . “I, uh. I guess if that’s what you wanna call it, sure. We’ve been - er, ‘ _ together _ ’ in a sense for just over half a year now, I think. But, things aren’t really going the way I thought- the way I  _ hoped  _ they would.

When he made the bold move to glance toward the newly resituated Danse, the overly serious, thoughtful look on his face almost broke Nate to pieces. He couldn’t even imagine what was going through that head of his, how close he was to figuring it all out.

“Nathan?”

“Mmyep?”

“Is there something you want to tell me?”

“Uh- about what, exactly?”

Nate had taken to sweating in Danse’s presence lately. Of the effects a man could have on another, this one wasn’t the most attractive, but it was their reality. The longer Mr. Metal seemed to mull everything over in his head, the closer Nate got to stocking up the settlement water stores for the remainder of the year.

“I understand if you want to keep it a secret. There are no secrets in the Brotherhood, but sometimes things warrant privacy. If you and Scribe Haylen--”

Nate let out a throaty laugh. It started Danse just as much as this  _ revelation  _ startled Nate.

“No, you’re right, Danse. It’s such a secret that even  _ she  _ doesn’t know about it. Instead, she’s sitting next to me making really dumb assumptions.” Confusion washed over Danse’s face just as suddenly as the almost terrified fit of laughter hit Nate once the reality of their situation set in. This man really was one of  _ the dumbest  _ intelligent men he’d ever met.

“We’re the only two people here, Nathan. Are you feeling alright? I think you should probably stop--” Nate downed the last finger of vodka in one pungent gulp, thrust the empty bottle into Danse’s incredibly dim hands, and slowly began his descent down the playset. This wasn’t as easy when he was halfway to hammered.

Among other formless stammers of protest, there was a “Nathan-”

“Goodnight, Paladin Dense. Don’t hurt yourself on the way down.” Avoiding Danse’s eyes in a rather shrewd act of tactical thinking, Nate clumsily picked up his radio and stumbled off back to the main house as quick as possible. The lack of a full moon really didn’t help, but he made it, and only tripped once. Last he saw before he breached the porch, Danse was still sitting on top of the dome, looking as lost as a pigeon in a snowstorm.

When Nate heard Danse climb into his neighboring sleeping bag half an age after he, himself had collapsed onto the adjacent bed, it took all of his personal training up until now to pretend he was asleep and to not engage. He was really getting pretty good at that lately, even with the occasional tingling that indicated he was being watched here and there.

It took about another hour for the Paladin to finally fall asleep. Now free of half the tension plaguing his mind, Nate followed suit not but a few minutes later, with one brief, parting thought:

_ Have fun tomorrow, dumbass. _

**Author's Note:**

> More out of sequence Paladin Danse/Male SS fluff. ;)  
> A bit dedicated to HowardRisdale who more or less prompted me to keep writing and whether or not that's a good thing is up to you lmao. I don't know if any of these works are going to follow one particular canon or if they're all independent one-shots but for now, whatever works for you folks reading.
> 
> Hope y'all didn't hate it, but if you did, hey, that's cool too. I'm just doing this for a bit of fun. <3


End file.
